Techmeme: Kik founder: young consumers who haven't settled on banking, shopping and gaming services are key to building a WeChat-like platform in developed markets (Ted Livingston/Medium)

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December 2, 2014, 12:25 AM

Top News

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Microsoft Buys Mobile Email Startup Acompli For More than $200 Million — Microsoft is expected to announce later Monday morning that it is indeed buying e-mail start-up Acompli. — There may not be much surprise in this one thanks to an errant blog post, but Microsoft's purchase …

Scott Kirsner / BetaBoston:

Airbnb acquires Pencil Labs, creators of scheduling app Wyth — Airbnb picks up Pencil, Cambridge startup that built scheduling app — Airbnb has quietly acquired a small Cambridge startup, Pencil Labs. Pencil Labs had built a scheduling app called Wyth that was intended to eliminate …

More: Tech Cocktail

Trevor Cole / Globe and Mail:

Profile of Tobi Lütke, CEO of software maker Shopify, which powers over 120K online stores — Meet our CEO of the Year — Tobi Lütke wears his pink hard hat with pride. “I like it,” he says. “I'm the only person with a pink hard hat in the entire house.” — By “house” he means “building.”

More: Techvibes Global News. Tweets: @stevebeckta

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Uber hires Goldman Sachs to raise money from bank's high-net-worth clients in a convertible debt offering separate from the reported $1B raise — Exclusive: Uber hires Goldman Sachs to raise money from bank clients — On-demand ride company Uber has hired Goldman Sachs GS to raise money …

More: Business Insider and bizjournals. Tweets: @preetatweets and @sullduggery

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Dropbox For Business Is About To Launch An Enterprise Tools API To Fight Box — Dropbox's frilly consumer brand and lack of hardcore enterprise security features has kept its “For Business” software from scoring more corporate clients. But an internal-only Dropbox launch plan attained …

More: VentureBeat. Tweets: @joshconstine

David Carnoy / CNET:

Amazon Echo speaker review: uneven sound quality, voice control a mere novelty, no iOS integration — Amazon Echo talks the talk, but still needs a little work on walking the walk — The Good The Amazon Echo is an attractively designed speaker and its voice-control system …

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

AOL Adds More Video Help by Buying Content Syndicator Vidible for Around $50 Million — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has spent a lot of time building out his video business. Now he is buying Vidible, a startup that's supposed to make it easier for publishers to get their video on other people's websites.

More: AOL Corp, Beet.TV, Mashable, VentureBeat, TechCrunch and Seeking Alpha. See also Mediagazer

Chance Miller / 9to5Google:

Google sold more Chromebooks to US schools than Apple did iPads in Q3 — According to the latest data from IDC, Google, for the first time ever, has overtaken Apple in United States schools. The research firm claims that Google shipped 715,000 Chromebooks to schools in the third quarter, while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads to schools.

More: Financial Times, AppleInsider, eWeek, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechSpot, The Register, Business Insider, iPhone, Patently Apple, Forbes, SiliconANGLE, TheStreet.com, MacRumors, opptrends and SlashGear

Tweets: @codinghorror and @dannysullivan

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Obama announces $75M funding for up to 50K police body cameras — Obama announces funding for 50,000 police body cameras — In an announcement today, the White House has pledged $263 million in new federal funding for police training and body cameras, enough to purchase as many as 50,000 cameras …

More: The Hill, The White House, Talking Points Memo, Guardian, msnbc.com, Engadget, NBC News, Associated Press, Vox, Los Angeles Times, Gizmodo, Washington Times, Yahoo!, GeekWire, Seeking Alpha, tech.co and VentureBeat. Tweets: @iijeriichoii

Jeremy C. Owens / Mercury News:

Cypress Semiconductor buys Spansion in $4B Silicon Valley chip deal — Cypress Semiconductors and Spansion, two of the largest chip companies in Silicon Valley, announced Monday that they will merge in a $4 billion deal. The newly formed company will retain the Cypress name and San Jose headquarters …

More: Tech Trader Daily, CNBC, Bloomberg, bizjournals, Cypress Semiconductor …, VentureBeat, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press

Ted Livingston / Medium:

Kik founder: young consumers who haven't settled on banking, shopping and gaming services are key to building a WeChat-like platform in developed markets — The Race to Become the WeChat of the West — I remember pitching Kik to investors in 2009. It was the most frustrating experience.

Tweets: @bwertz and @barjack

Brian X. Chen / New York Times:

Apple going to trial this week for decade old iTunes DRM lawsuit, faces potential $350M in damages — Star Witness in Apple Suit Is Steve Jobs — SAN FRANCISCO — Three years after his death, Steve Jobs is very much a presence in courtrooms across the country. — And that's not necessarily good news for Apple.

Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal:

Hortonworks IPO: 6M shares at $12-$14, valued at approx $600M, less than $1B reported earlier, hopes to raise $96.6M; will debut on Nasdaq under symbol HDP — Hortonworks lowers IPO target a bit, hopes to raise up to $96.6M — Big Data software provider Hortonworks on Monday set price targets …

More: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Wall Street Journal, NASDAQ.com, Fortune, Gigaom, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check and bizjournals

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Mozilla rolls out Firefox 34 with default Yahoo search for North America, disables support for SSL 3.0 standard — Firefox's latest update makes Yahoo the default search option — That was fast. It was just two weeks ago that Mozilla announced a deal making Yahoo the default search engine in Firefox …

More: The Next Web, 9to5Google, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, ITworld.com, eWeek, Softonic, VentureBeat and Computerworld

Reuters:

Sony hires Mandiant after cyber attack, FBI starts probe — (Reuters) - Sony Pictures Entertainment has hired FireEye Inc's Mandiant forensics unit to clean up a massive cyber attack that knocked out the studio's computer network nearly a week ago, three people with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday.

More: Fusion, Washington Post, PCMag Australia Feed, SiliconANGLE, SiliconBeat, Network World, Threatpost, SC Magazine, Bloomberg, socalTECH.com, Digital Trends, Inside Movies, Los Angeles Times, Computerworld, The Verge and CNBC. Tweets: @nickelliottdj. See also Mediagazer

Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:

Lending Club sets IPO price range of $10-12 a share, could raise up to $692M at $4B valuation — Lending Club Prices Its Share Offering, Seeking Up to $692 Million in I.P.O. — Lending Club shot to prominence nearly eight years ago by helping borrowers and lenders avoid big banks and find each other directly through the Internet.

Tweets: @ourielohayon

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